Arcane-Psionic Problems

Arcane and Psionic — the last two power sources left for me to draft. The first is a personal bugbear of mine — the second is the red-headed stepchild of D&D.

It isn’t even that I don’t have enough for them to do — it’s hard to settle on a couple archetypes. I have a “counterspell” power and I don’t know where it should go. I have [Summons] powers, and I have yet to start writing them.

I have the entire Psionic block to write. It’s just like, “what should I do?”

The answer is simple, actually. Just do it. Start writing, see what comes out. 4e fixed a lot of the problems I had with summons in 3e, I just need to start with what already exists — and then just revise, revise, revise. That’s it.

Really, the “Apprentice” class feature was a Hope Spot for the entire Arcane power block. It helped me see how the Arcane power could be similar to the other sources, while remaining both thematically and mechanically distinct.

Really, I don’t know what’s left for me to do except “jump in” to the last two. I’m about halfway through drafting the Arcane classes and mostly caught up in which archetypes will have which names, and how to define them best.

Psionic classes — I’m not so sure about. I have ideas for almost all of them, mind. I just haven’t committed too much to the page. The discovery that I had misjudged the Runepriest (PHB3) and completely misunderstood the Vestige Pact Warlock (Arcane Power) leaves me wary of other potential missteps.

And yet.

I know I can’t account for everything. I will inevitably miss something — in fact, I’ve only gotten this far through the iterative process. I only know what I know now because I began when I knew even less, felt inadequate, and began again.

I don’t want to go through another iteration of the archetypes. I’ve made so much progress this time that it feels like it would be backtracking — I mean, it quite literally would be — to start again. But it might happen.

I have to be ready to be wrong again, because I might be. That’s how we learn. I have to overcome this fear that I might have missed something again, and keep plowing until I reach the end. I won’t know until I’m done.